4. Information Flow From Publishers to National Bibliographic Agencies
pRoduct information for hard copy material currently flows from publishers through various other agencies to libraries. It would be useful to identify the players involved in this process and identify the most widely used data standards and communication media. A detailed model has been drawn up (Annex A) based on the present flow of information from traditional publishers for print and non-print publications in the UK. It is likely that the rise in popularity of electronic publication and the entry of 'new publishers' will cause some changes to this model, but the present model will remain, adapt and co-exist with other flows.
A more formal definition of 'publication' is required and will be explored in the context of BIBLINK. At this stage, we note a continuum between conventional print materials and newer forms of network publication which have characteristics unprecedented in other media. Physical carriers of digital material such as diskette and CD-ROM can be, and often are, distributed in exactly the same way and through exactly the same channels as printed books, audio and video cassettes, and other media - frequently as parts of a hybrid package.
This model is based almost entirely on the current situation in the UK, and there are probably some features which are at present unique to the UK. In the UK there is significant involvement of trade bibliographic agencies in the process of bibliographic control, this is not reflected, for example, in the Netherlands where there is more direct communication of information from publishers to the national library. Other strands could usefully be incorporated into the model to cover patterns which have been adopted elsewhere in Europe, for example emphasising the role of other libraries and library union catalogues in the information flow.
4.1 Organisations Involved in the Metadata Information Flow
The organisations currently involved in the transmission of metadata have been categorised as :
4.1.1 Publishers
UK examples of publishers substantially involved in a mix of print and non-print publishing and/or with relatively well-developed internal information systems: Oxford University Press, Institute of Physics, Dorling Kindersley, Reed Group (both academic and general trade publishing).
4.1.2 Information services
For example compilers and suppliers of metadata independent of the supply of actual publications.
- National library bibliographic agencies.
UK example: the British Library National Bibliographic Service.
- Trade bibliographic agencies.
UK examples: Whitaker, Book Data, Bibliographic Data Services.
- Abstracting and indexing services, typically subject-based.
UK example: INSPEC (The Institution of Electrical Engineers).
- Serial contents databases, not subject-based.
These may be associated with a journal subscription agent or national library document supply service, but have been treated as a separate category for the purposes of this analysis. It includes new 'table of contents' services, often provided as part of larger document supply service. CARL UnCover also fits in here. These services will become more common as a variety of players, including publishers themselves, enter document supply. UK examples: Blackwells, British Library Document Supply Centre.
4.1.3 Suppliers
The suppliers of actual publications who also supply metadata.
- Booksellers and library suppliers.
UK examples of booksellers particularly active as (a) users of externally-supplied metadata in their own business: W H Smith, Dillons, Heffers, or (b) onward suppliers of metadata to library customers: Askews, Dawsons, Holt Jackson, JMLS/Blackwells etc.
- Journal subscription agents.
The major agents are international: Blackwell Group, Dawsons/Faxon, Swets, EBSCO, etc.
4.1.4 Libraries
- Library union catalogue organisations
These are organisations which hold union catalogues of their members, and are involved in the supply of records to libraries. They may be commercial, or non-profit companies, or part of the library sector. They are sometimes linked to library management system suppliers (e.g. in the UK such organisations as LASER, BLCMP, SLS, CURL; in Sweden BTJ and LIBRIS; in the Netherlands PICA; and throughout Europe OCLC).
- Contributing Libraries
Other libraries contributing to the work of the national bibliographic agency e.g. in the UK other legal deposit libraries
With the increase in electronic delivery of services there has been a blurring of the roles of the various organisations identified above in the metadata information flow, as can be seen by the complexity of the information flow in the diagram. (Annex 1). It seems likely that with the increase in on-line publication and delivery organisations will continue to take on multiple roles with a parallel growth in the complexity of information flow. Creation and enhancement of metadata will be carried out by a variety of organisations, all of whom will be contributing to the 'bibliographic control' of electronic publications.
There are already new organisations emerging which already have a role in the production of information about electronic publications. For example:
- Authors
A number of initiatives are underway which aim to encourage authors, or document producers, to 'embed' metadata in their web and other documents.
- Internet search services
These may be global commercial services (such as Yahoo, Excite) or selective subject services (such as the UK eLib services OMNI, SOSIG and others, Swedish engineering service EELS, or the Dutch national service NBS). At present these are the chief source of bibliographic control of resources on the Internet. An important feature of the latter services is that they involve informed manual selection of description of included resources.
- Electronic archive services
Archive services are collecting , preserving and providing access to electronic material. As part of this venture they create metadata, often of a highly detailed nature, to describe these documents. Examples of such organisations are the Oxford Text Archive, the Essex Data Archive, the Electronic Text Centre at the University of Virginia.
- Repository collections
A number of repositories of electronic publications are becoming established, particularly in the academic world. Repositories provide access to current selected material but may or may not have an archival function, e.g. Los Alamos National Physics Pre-print Archive. As the Internet becomes a more mature information environment, many well-managed information repositories will appear, and the supply of metadata will be seen as an important component of such management.
4.2 Metadata Formats Associated with Particular Types of Organisation
The various types of organisation involved in the model use particular metadata formats, and many are involved in the development of proposed new formats. The formats in the following sections have been identified as being particularly associated with following groups.
4.2.1 Publishers, Booksellers and Suppliers
Publishers' bibliographic databases own formats e.g. BIC Manual on Publishers' Bibliographic Databases, draft, 1994. (unpublished, but available on request from Book Industry Communication.)
Cataloguing in Publication forms.
EDI standards :
TRADACOMS: Book Trade Price & Availability Updates File, TRADACOMS File Format 108, Version 1, London, Book Industry Communication/Article Number Association, July 1993.
BISAC: BISAC X12 832 Price/Sales Catalog, New York, Book Industry Study Group, 1996
EDIFACT: The EC EDILIBE project, in association with EDItEUR, have defined an EDIFACT QUOTES message to be used for new title notices from booksellers to libraries.
SGML standards: DTDs for serial headers including MAJOUR and SSSH.
Under development: SGML formats for book and serial product information; EDIFACT formats for book and serial product information.
4.2.2 Libraries, National Bibliographic Agencies, Trade Bibliographic Agencies
Various MARC formats e.g. UKMARC, IBERMARC, UNIMARC. The MARC records created at various stages of the information flow may be of varying levels of richness. At the Cataloguing in Publication stage there will be a basic record containing few fields (sometimes referred to as a pseudo-MARC record).
4.2.3 Internet search services
Proprietary formats: such as those used by OCLC's NetFirst service, internal formats in Yahoo and AltaVista.
Dublin Core
SOIF.
IAFA/whois++ templates.
Resource description messages (RDM).
4.2.4 Electronic Text Archives
TEI headers.
EAD.
CIMI.
ISAD(G).
4.2.5 Repositories
Under development:
RFC 1807 (A format for bibliographic records) as used in the NCSTRL project.
